Indefinite suspension for Russian Federation

The global Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) voted overwhelmingly on Friday to suspend the Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) for widespread and state-sponsored doping.

Mutko said: “These athletes who cheat should be punished but healthy sportsmen, clean sportsmen, must be protected”.

“This is a wake up call for all of us, we need to look at ourselves, within our sport, my organisation as well and we will do that”.

UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner has criticised worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach’s comments that clean Russian athletes can expect to compete in the Olympic Games next year.

Sebastian Coe has conceded that unless he and his fellow leaders fully grasp the enormity of the crisis in their sport, there are “unlikely to be many tomorrows for athletics”. If the athletes were unwilling to participate in the doping program, they would not have access to neither high calibre coaching assistance nor be considered as part of the federation’s national team.

“I believe, the IAAF council made a decision which was too severe”, he is quoted as saying by the R-Sport agency.

The Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko says he is determined to fight the use of doping by the country’s athletes.

“Everyone within the IAAF will work tirelessly with authorities in Russian Federation on the reinstatement of ARAF as soon as possible as this is the best outcome for the athletes”. Mutko has already promised that the rest of the Russian team would not boycott the Rio Games in protest.

The investigators accused him of leading the destruction of more than 1,400 testing samples despite WADA pleas to preserve them.

Dozens of runners formed the Professional Athletes Association of Kenya (PAAK) and with the help of WADA, they have been holding anti-doping seminars for runners and working with local chemists to prevent athletes using banned substances.

Former IAAF President Lamine Diack and the IAAF’s former anti-doping manager are under criminal investigation in France on charges of corruption relating to doping coverups. “From (the IAAF’s) perspective, in light of the evidence, suspension was the only proper course of action”, said Stephanie Hightower, president of USA Track and Field. But it softened in hopes of avoiding suspension, agreeing to admit to a few of the allegations.

It also recommended on Monday to ban for life five Russian athletes and five coaches over their involvement in doping abuse violations as well as to strip the Moscow anti-doping laboratory of its license.

Coe, who won Olympic gold in the 1500 metres in 1980 in Moscow and 1984 in Los Angeles, added: “It is an observation that stabs between the ribs, and something that I have thought about restlessly and incessantly over the past bad week for athletics”.

The track federation’s acting president, Vadim Zelichenok, said Russia is focused on finding “a rational compromise” to have the ban lifted but could appeal to CAS if the IAAF “tells us clearly that it doesn’t accept any of our arguments”.